


The Female of the Species

by ValidEmail (orphan_account)



Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
Genre: F/F, High School AU, charlotte is one gay bitch, i love the lesbians, sorta 5/1??, they live in maine, you wanted rep? here's rep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-05-05 13:22:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14619435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/ValidEmail
Summary: Charlotte DuBois doesn't really know what to think of the new girl at Eastwood High. So she decides to approach the topic as she does with any other question she'd like to solve - by performing an experiment. Or, in this case, a series of them.





	The Female of the Species

**Author's Note:**

> hello!! so everyone wants more stuff about the lesbians - don't worry, i've got lots more stuff to push out . love you! -annie
> 
> (follow my [tumblr](https://validemail.tumblr.com/) for updates!!)

There was something different about that new girl. Charlotte DuBois just couldn’t put her tongue on it, but she was sure it was there. It was in the way she spoke with the other students, especially the cheerleaders who had taken her underneath their wing since her arrival to Eastwood High. The way she walked, with her feet right out in front in a sort of proud march, head held high, posture perfect. Her bubbly laughter Charlotte had never heard from a human being before. Sometimes it was so distracting Charlotte would end up just uselessly twisting her fork around in her homemade macaroni & lactose-free cheese, dazedly watching the strangely beautiful transfer student giggle with the rest of the popular troops at their table towards the other side of the cafeteria. 

 

Charlotte knew what different looked like. She was, in fact, different in her own way. For starters, she and her brother were the only black students at the highly prestigious Maine school. The other girls shied away from her, due to some unfortunate rumors that had started up during her eighth grade year, some including her and another girl who had long since moved away, and well - Charlotte still had the scars running along her arms to prove it wasn’t really just a rumor. She was a nerd, and the only people willing to be her friends were a few other outcasts, so before  _ Cordelia Stevens  _ showed up, she’d spend lunch in one of the upperclassman science labs with a key taken from her brother’s room, experimenting and working on new experiments. More often than not, her only real other friend, Whizzer Brown, would join her, to add sarcastic comments and his own wacked ideas on what to mix together. 

 

It wasn’t like she really wanted to be strange. She accepted that she been born into that role, though, like her brother had been cast as the handsome older brother jock who barely paid attention to his little sister, and work it she would. Whizzer hadn’t, but it seemed the universe had just plucked him from the role of ‘nice baseball player who was also sort of a ladies man’ to ‘outcast gay boy who got beaten up outside of the seventh grade Sadie Hawkins.’ Charlotte had taken him under her wing, and Whizzer had decorated her treehouse for her. Now they were a duo of scientists, searching for ways to jump ship, leave town, and hide within the trees of the forests surrounding their small living area. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to trust Whizzer with her next planned experiment, though. Meaning the one she was about to go perform on  _ Cordelia Stevens _ , the newest addition to the cheer squad. Not that Charlotte had watched their cheer tryouts to see, gazing at Cordelia’s long, pale legs and her form in the tight blue-and-yellow uniform. If she had, no one would have noticed anyway.

 

**PHASE ONE - OBSERVATION**

 

In order to get more information on  _ Cordelia _ , Charlotte decided that first she’d have to watch her a bit more than she was doing already. First off, Cordelia sure seemed to like eating exotic foreign foods. The rest of the girls who followed her around like ducklings admired her tastes, as Charlotte happened to overhear, but Cordelia just explained shyly that she traveled a lot, so she was used to different foods than the rest of them. Pointedly, the Sloppy Joes they were serving for lunch. Charlotte had dumped hers after hearing that, for no reason at all. Of course.

 

Cordelia also really missed California, where she was originally from. It explained the vibrant blond curls and sparkling eyes, along with the fascination from certain cheerleaders. To her peers, California was another country entirely. Charlotte was sure at least seventy percent of her high school population actually thought it was. She lamented about it during the third lunch Charlotte had began to observe her, moving from the nerd table to the peanut-free zone, which Whizzer appreciated, since he was allergic to tree nuts. Charlotte kind of regretted it though, because she stopped listening so closely to Cordelia to imagine holding her hand on one of the many beautiful California beaches, and then had to spend the rest of the lunch period in the girl’s bathroom cleaning off Whizzer when a jock had dumped his lunch all over her best friend’s newest vintage outfit choice. 

 

Another added setback was that Cordelia was beginning to notice her. It seemed her disguises she wore around town weren’t working that much anymore. She felt the blonde’s eyes staring into her back softly during Health, the only other class besides honors English they had together, as Charlotte sat willingly in the front of that class and Cordelia in the back with her popular friends. The girls would laugh at the guys goofing off, Charlotte would chat with the teacher, Miss Smith, and that was that. Now, though, it appeared like there was a line about to be crossed. Like Cordelia was toeing it with one of her always bare feet, despite the fact that she got dress-coded at least once a day. 

 

“Stop staring, you’ll scare her off,” Whizzer told her one day at lunch, while he was opening the paper bag sack he called a lunch. Charlotte rested her chin on one of her dark fists and stared longingly - not longingly, she was just calculating - off into the distance at Cordelia, who was busy snickering at one of the jocks who had shot milk through his nose like it was some sort of party trick. Whizzer followed her gaze, twisting his head around to reveal his pale neck, though the skin was tainted by one winding scar, and grimaced at the scene, before shaking his head and taking out his peanut-butter only sandwich. 

 

“I’m just observing,” Charlotte corrected distantly, Whizzer rolling his eyes. She directed her line of view, after a quick second of struggle, to watch him remove the top piece of bread from his sandwich and pour dried out Puffins all over the peanut butter. He reached back into the bag, retrieving one of those ‘Fun Dip’ packages, before dumping the entire sugar packet onto his lunch. He placed the top piece back onto the rest, and took a bite. Charlotte’s face stayed emotionless. This was just part of Whizzer’s lunchtime ritual. 

 

Charlotte decided to put an end to the current section of her experiment about five days after she had agreed on doing it. She had been walking down the hallway, seeing what kind of beat she could make out of her sneaker squeaks, when she had overheard a conversation between one of the most popular girls, Britney or Whatever, and Cordelia.

 

“She’s a fucking dyke, that’s what she is,” Britney or Whatever had hissed at Cordelia, who didn’t respond. There was a locker slam, and Charlotte ducked around so that she was hidden behind one of the many hallway trash cans. 

 

“Have you ever actually had a conversation with her?” Cordelia questioned after a moment, and Charlotte shifted so that she could get a better view. Both girls weren’t facing her, instead turned towards their lockers, removing their books after cheerleading practice.

 

“No, but neither have you,” Britney or Whatever pointed out, jabbing one perfect finger in the direction of the other cheerleader. “Besides, you don’t know what she did a few years back.” Charlotte felt the urge to march up and strangle the girl right then. But Cordelia probably wouldn’t enjoy that. Where was Whizzer with his cool old car and the broken engine? Probably off flirting with that stupid public school boy who ran the chess team at the high school close to the city.

 

“What’d she do?” Cordelia asked her curiously, and Britney or Whatever slung one of the arms of her backpack over her shoulder, shrugging. Cordelia retrieved her messenger bag, and put it around her arm as well, trying to mimic what Britney or Whatever was pulling off.

 

“Totally flung herself at one of the girls on the cheer squad. She went nuts. Both were almost expelled. Sabrina left, and Charlotte became even more of an outcast than she already was,” Britney or Whatever let out a humorless chuckle. “Serves her right.” Cordelia’s pretty face twisted up in a frown, but she still followed Britney or Whatever dutifully, the two leaving Charlotte behind the garbage can, who suddenly realized there were tears on her cheeks.

 

**PHASE TWO - INTRODUCTION/CONVERSATION**

 

Cordelia, actually, was the one who approached her first. She explained sweetly, quietly, while Charlotte was bent over writing down scribbles of observations about the girl in front of her that she needed helped with tutoring in Geometry - since Charlotte had taken it in eighth grade, she thought it would be easy for the other girl to help her. Cordelia’s voice was as peculiar as she was - it was smooth, yet rigid, and it washed over Charlotte in shockwaves, like she had been hit by an earthquake.  Of course, through a stuttering mess, Charlotte had agreed to it, leaving the library with a bright grin on her face that she rarely showed. It was reserved for reruns of old  _ The Jetsons  _ episodes or Whizzer’s stupid puns.

 

Whizzer and her met up in the treehouse the next afternoon, a day before Charlotte was supposed to have her first tutoring session with Cordelia. Charlotte had flashed him the night before, using her flashlight to send him morse code. He replied in kind, and then it was decided. She was already sat on the wooden flooring, sketching out her plans to add to her hamster, Lenny, and his massive hamster city that ran all throughout the treehouse and into her bedroom, as the treehouse was very close to her bedroom’s right set of windows. 

 

Charlotte felt a tug on the rope below, which she would use to pull up the seat that was connected to the treehouse. Calmly, as this was routine, she leaned her head out the window and grinned mischievously down at her best friend, who was staring up at her, eyes large behind his owl-like glasses.

 

“What’s the password?” She called down, and Whizzer let out a playful huff from down below. Shaking his head, he tilted his face even more upwards so that she’d be able to hear his response.

 

“Don’t make me say it,” He shouted, cupping his hands over his mouth to amply his voice. Charlotte chuckled, and shrugged carelessly. 

 

“Rules are rules, Whiz,” She informed him calmly. “You picked the password last week, and I got to pick it this week. So say it, or you’re not getting let up.” He let out a long groan, loud enough so that the birds in the tree Charlotte was sitting in fluttered away. Lenny squeaked from his spot at the watering hole, or center, of what Charlotte called ‘Tube City.’ 

 

“Madonna isn’t the queen of pop,” He murmured to himself, and then rolled his eyes very blatantly as he watched Charlotte put one hand around her ear to signify he needed to be louder. “Madonna isn’t the queen of pop! Happy?” She nodded triphumantly, and gestured for him to sit. He did so, and she pulled on the rope so that he reached the top of the treehouse. He, though a junior boy in high school, was very light. Tumbling through the entryway, he smiled at her, and they performed their handshake. The wooden panels creaked as he sat down on one of the beanbag chairs, opposite Charlotte’s spread of invention ideas. 

 

“Okay, so spill. What was the need for the urgent call?” He asked nonchalantly, placing his hands behind his head as he stretched out, much like a cat. She watched him carefully bask in the sun. 

 

“I’m a little stumped with my latest project,” She began slowly, as to not make him jumpy. Whizzer was a very jumpy sort of boy, terrified of loud noises and the type of person to avoid large crowds. At least, he was like that after the accident happened. “Cordelia asked me to tutor her.” Whizzer let out an affirmative hum, and cracked his neck.

 

“A stumping factor indeed,” He replied calmly, completely at ease. “Well, just weave that into your plan. If she wants to talk to you, that’s a good thing, right?” He cracked one stunningly dark brown eyes open at her, and despite herself, Charlotte shivered. 

 

“I don’t know how to talk to her,” Charlotte explained, and stood up to take Lenny out of his cage to pet him soothingly. “I don’t really know how to talk to anyone besides you.” Whizzer smiled to himself, and Charlotte was reminded why all of the girls used to fawn over him. Though the balant scars on his face from that horrific event in seventh grade tainted his perfect face slightly, his handsomeness was still clear within his smile, and how he looked when he was draped in sunlight. If she wasn’t a lesbian, she’d totally go for that.

 

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” He replied softly, and then sat up, opening his eyes completely to watch her reassuringly. “But don’t worry. Just be yourself! I think she might have a little weird in her. I saw her in the library the other day flipping through pictures of various planets.” Charlotte let out a lovesick sigh, and spun slightly in her spot at the comment.

 

The two girls met up at the town’s public library off school grounds the following day. Charlotte learned that Cordelia, like her, was also a home-liver - meaning she didn’t stay in a dorm at the school. Whizzer was different from that, as his parents shunned him rather strongly.

 

Charlotte, while having biked there, waited inside for her tutor pupil to arrive. The telltale sound of loud bumping music and the familiar voices of the cheerleaders told her that she, indeed, had actually come, although about fifteen minutes late. Cordelia flew through the library door, instantiate getting shushed by the elderly librarian who had been standing close to the door. Having the decency to bow her head in slight shame, Cordelia rushed to sit down across from Charlotte, who’s annoyance at her being late floated away the instant their eyes met. 

 

“Ready to start?” Cordelia asked her breathlessly, pulling her messenger bag over her shoulder and hanging it over the back of her chair, while she bent down to find her Geometry textbook. “Sorry I’m late. The girls wouldn’t let me go. I barely convinced them to drop me off here.” Charlotte frowned down at her own textbook, one she had borrowed from her younger sister. 

“They don’t want you to do better in class?” Charlotte whispered in confusion, avoiding the strong gazes of the workers around them. She was well-liked in this library, as was Whizzer, since they spent a lot of time in here, but she’d still get a dirty look if she spoke too loudly. Cordelia shrugged awkwardly, careless stance disaperating at the mention of her friends. 

 

“They do,” She seemed like she was about to say more, but then shook her head, and stopped speaking. Cracking open her textbook, Charlotte sensed Cordelia wanted the subject to drop. She did so willingly, though managed to jot down a few notes about that in her notebook while Cordelia wasn’t watching her with the utmost attention she had been giving her most of the time.

 

When their two-hour session was over, Charlotte headed off on her bike. She watched from the growing shadows of the sun setting behind the library as Cordelia bounded down the steps and flung herself into the passenger seat of a beautiful red Convertible, not even giving a glance back to her tutor while they proceeded to speed down the road. Charlotte biked the other way, careful to avoid the car, despite the fact that they had been heading in the direction of her house. 

 

**PHASE THREE: FLIRTATION/COMMUNICATION**

 

Charlotte began to feel eyes on her back around second period a weekend and one day after their first tutoring session. She twisted in her seat to glance towards Cordelia, who sat a few seats behind her. The cheerleader was scribbling furiously onto her paper, and if Charlotte wasn’t the observant girl she was, she probably wouldn’t have realized Cordelia had been staring at her. But the other teenager was blushing furiously, and her blond curls were bopping due to the sheer force she had used to whip her head back down to stare at her paper. Smiling softly, Charlotte twisted back in her seat - and felt eyes on her again. This time, she didn’t turn around, for fear of Cordelia getting the hint and stopping her watchful gaze. When the bell rang and Honors English ended, Charlotte stole a glance at the paper Cordelia had been writing on - there was a messy drawing of someone with dark skin. Could be a character Cordelia was thinking about, or it could be Charlotte. Cordelia shoved it into her binder before anyone else saw, and dived into a deep conversation with one of the football players close to her. She didn’t dare look at Charlotte as she walked past her desk. 

 

“So she drew a picture of you, what gives?” Whizzer’s voice was scratchy over the phone as he munched on something unidentifiable along the other end. There was a low murmur of a boy’s voice close to the telephone. Charlotte scrunched up her face in an attempt to listen more closely. 

 

“What gives is that it’s like she’s studying me too. Do you think we’re both performing tests on one another at the same time?” Charlotte pondered, leaning back on her father’s couch. He had her that week, so she didn’t have her own landline like she did in her mother’s house. Not that she missed her mother that much. 

 

“Is that what the kids are calling it now? Performing tests?” The unfamiliar male voice on the other end chuckled deeply, and Whizzer let out a maniac giggle Charlotte only recognized from how he reacted when Jeremy had come to school that year of seventh grade. Something lodged in her chest. 

 

“Who’s there with you?” She questioned carefully, raising an eyebrow to herself. Whizzer’s giggle cut off abruptly at the appearance of her ‘Momma Bear’ voice. 

 

“Marvin,” Whizzer allowed, and she could almost picture his lovesick smile. The rock in her stomach turned into three rocks. “He’s the chess team captain at Westwood High.” Charlotte gritted her teeth, recalling the very stuck-up, curly haired Jewish boy Whizzer had breathlessly introduced to her after Temple a few weeks back. 

 

“Whizzer,” She warned, and could hear his eyes roll. There was a moment of silence on the line, one where they had a conversation without speaking. It mostly featured Whizzer telling her Marvin was fine, he wasn’t going to hurt him, and Charlotte not believing him. “I’m going to call Cordelia.” Whizzer sighed.

 

“Charlotte, don’t hang up-” She hung up quickly, pressing the end call button with one of her bitten nails. Hesitating for a moment, she dialed Cordelia with a quivering hand. 

 

“Cordelia Stevens speaking, to whom to I owe the pleasure?” Her pretty, quaint voice sent volts straight to Charlotte’s heart.

 

“Um, it’s Charlotte,” She greeted awkwardly, and then instantly regretted it. Being cool in front of pretty girls was not something she was particularly good about. 

 

“Oh, hey Charlotte!” Cordelia responded, voice lifting just a bit at the mention of the other girl. It made Charlotte feel a whole zoo in her stomach. “What’s up?”

 

“I just...I’m just a little tired of my friends,” Charlotte admitted, twirling the phone cord around in her finger aimlessly. Cordelia let out one of her signature barking laughs on the other side.

 

“Me too,” She agreed softly. “That’s why I’m staying home today. They wanted me to come out to the city with them to visit their older college boyfriends, but I didn’t want to go. Last time I did I threw up in front of everyone.” Charlotte smiled to herself.

 

“Seriously?” She countered, and chuckled to herself. “That’s embarrassing.” In her own room, Cordelia was leaning back on her bed pillows, and grinning stupidly up at her ceiling due to the voice of the other girl.

 

“What about you?” Cordelia inquired after a moment of silence, Charlotte freezing in her relaxed position on her father’s couch. “What’s Whizzer done to get you all worked up?” Cordelia sounded like she was barely holding in a giggle.

 

“He just doesn’t understand sometimes when not to trust a person,” Charlotte told her, shocking herself with the raw reply she started to give. “Ever since the accident at the dance happened I’ve always been scared he’s just gonna fall into a worse trap than before.” 

 

“What was the accident?” That simple question almost knocked the wind out of Charlotte’s lungs. From the rudeness of the cheerleaders she was sure that they had told Cordelia about it. But then again, it was a difficult thing for anyone to talk about. Even if it was a topic of laughter instead of sadness. It reminded Charlotte of the lights and the pain. She remembered how bright the hospital was, how she was the only person in the school to stay at Whizzer’s side. They hadn’t even been friends before. They probably wouldn’t ever had been friends if  _ it  _ hadn’t happened.

 

“I think that’s a face-to-face conversation,” Charlotte breathed out, and Cordelia was eerily quiet for a moment. 

 

“I’ll come pick you up,” Cordelia suggested, and her smile had returned to her voice. “We don’t have to talk about the accident, though. We’ll just go to Rats, and hang out. Did you eat dinner yet?” Charlotte struggled to remember how to speak for a moment.

 

“Okay,” And then Cordelia was hanging up quickly, leaving Charlotte alone in her living room. She held a hand to her heart, feeling the beat speed up, and tried to calm her breath. The memories never seemed to go away. She predicted it was much, much worse for Whizzer. She managed to jot down a few notes, and stash them in her room before Cordelia was outside of her house, honking wildly. 

 

**PHASE FOUR: REPUTATION**

 

One hangout session, or as both girls avoided the term, ‘date’ turned into a weekly occurrence. Cordelia would pick her up after chess club, and together they’d go speeding down into the main section of town to eat junk food and talk shit about other people. For the first time in her life, Charlotte felt that she had actually made a normal connection to someone. And it wasn’t the kind of connection she had with Whizzer.

 

Whizzer was different from anyone Charlotte had ever known. They hadn’t spoken a word to each other before the day she had visited him in the hospital, but from then on, they had become inseparable. Yet they weren’t the type of friends who could just decide to go to a diner, and eat bad food together. Whizzer liked having everything planned, and was terrified of crowded places. Charlotte could never bring him to Rats, she wouldn’t want to hurt him like that. Still, she had yearned for a true friendship. Cordelia had given her one.

 

“Your cheerleader friends don’t seem to like me that much,” Charlotte commented one lazy afternoon, when both girls were lying on Cordelia’s bed. Charlotte was on her back, looking up at the white ceiling, while Cordelia was on her stomach, flipping through teen magazines she kept stashed underneath her bed.

 

“Let’s not talk about them,” Cordelia suggested, her voice tighter than it had been before. Charlotte kept her eyes steady on the ceiling, and took a deep breath.

 

“Fine,” She relented after a moment, and paused. “It was December of seventh grade.” Charlotte felt a shift on the bed, and could almost sense Cordelia’s head whipping up in curiosity from the quiz about best friends she had been taking mere seconds before. When Charlotte could tell she was listening intently, she continued with her story.

 

“Whizzer was the most popular kid in junior high back then. Everyone loved him. He was the star of the baseball team, and he had never even looked my way,” She smiled humorlessly up at the ceiling, and shook her head against Cordelia’s pillow. “He was going stag to the Sadie Hawkins dance.” 

 

“So he didn’t have a girlfriend, or any girl friends?” Cordelia spaced the last two words out so that they held a different meaning from when she had spoken them the first time. Charlotte glanced over at her, and shrugged. 

 

“I mean, probably not,” Charlotte replied. “Although a lot of the girls asked him, he always said no. Like he was waiting for someone special to ask him.” She looked down, and began to play with a loose strand of wool hanging off of her sweater.

 

“It was the night of Sadie Hawkins, right? And everyone was having a great time. Until word got around through the crowd that Whizzer hadn’t accepted any of the girls’ invitations because he had been wanting Jeremy, a soccer player, to ask him. Well, Jeremy wasn’t too happy about that. Whizzer had already been humiliated in front of everyone, when one of the cheerleaders who had asked him confronted him about it, and then split punch down his front. He ran out of the dance, but not before calling his mom on the office phone to come pick him up. He was waiting outside when Jeremy and some of his buddies jumped ‘em and beat him up in the alleyway beside the middle school. He was so destroyed the ambulance couldn’t even identify him when they picked him up.” Cordelia let out a little gasp, but Charlotte paid her no attention. She was stuck in memories, of cowering in the corner, doing  _ nothing  _ while they destroyed that sad little boy like wolves with a sheep. 

 

“Well, they took him to the hospital, and the school just seemed to go back to normal. There was a gap at the baseball team table, of course, but everyone just acted like he never existed. I was the only one who went to visit him. I felt so guilty I hadn’t done anything for him. He told me it wasn’t my fault, and then let me watch a few episodes of Scooby Doo with him on the hospital television,” Charlotte grinned goofily despite the sadness of the story at hand. “We’ve been best friends ever since.” Cordelia was silent for a moment, though Charlotte could hear her turning pages in the magazine aimlessly.

 

“What happened after he came back to that school?” Cordelia questioned tentatively. “Did...did they beat him up again?” Charlotte shook her head, and lifted herself up into a sitting position on the bed.

 

“No, he just stayed there for another year, a shell of his former self. Then his mom and dad scraped enough money together to send him off to boarding school. Fortunately, I followed so that I could kinda be his bodyguard. Unfortunately, so did a lot of the kids from the previous school,” Charlotte’s face turned wistful. “He can’t seem to escape his past. And, neither can I, but I wish that he could just be happy again. Like he was happy before.” She let out a sigh, and leaned her head against Cordelia’s headboard, letting out a sigh. After a moment, Cordelia stood up to put a record on, and they didn’t speak another word to each other until it was time for Charlotte to go back to her mom’s house.

 

After that conversation, Cordelia seemed to begin to pull away from her. She went back to eating lunch with the cheerleaders, and avoiding Charlotte’s gaze during Health. Charlotte had overheard her discussing with some of her friends, featuring Brittany or Whatever (of course) about getting a new tutor. The worst, though, was when Charlotte could hear them gossiping about her when she was only a few seats over in study hall. 

 

“Why have you been avoiding me?” Charlotte confronted her after about a week of this chasing game, while they were alone in a classroom. Originally it had been a meeting for tutoring, but Cordelia wouldn’t talk to her. Back and forth, back and forth. She was sick of it. Cordelia watched her carefully, nervously, like Charlotte was about to jump her.

 

“I know what you’re playing at, Charlotte,” Cordelia replied mysteriously. Charlotte furrowed her eyebrows in confusion, though her heart was dropping to the soles of her feet. Somehow, she suspected she knew what Cordelia was talking about. 

 

“What do you mean?” Charlotte continued, praying that the cheerleaders hadn’t already brainwashed Cordelia. The girl sitting in front of her was so unique, and yet the bottle heads had poisoned her into pushing that away. 

 

“I mean that you’re trying to lure me in so that you can syke me with your gayness,” Cordelia’s voice was monotone, as though she were reading off of cue cards. “Just like you did with that one cheerleader who came before me.” Charlotte’s face twisted up. It felt as though she had been slapped in the face. 

 

“You know nothing about what happened with Sabrina,” Charlotte hissed out angrily, and stepped away from Cordelia. “I thought we were friends.” Cordelia folded her arms across her chest, and turned her face down to her feet, as though they were the most interesting things in the world.

 

“I do know what happened with Sabrina,” Cordelia told her outright. “And it’s fucking disgusting.” Charlotte wiped at her eyes furiously, and let out a sniffle without meaning it. Cordelia’s head whipped up from her steady gaze on the floor at the sound. 

 

“Sabrina was the one who sexually assaulted  _ me,”  _  Charlotte snapped, hands shaking as she pointed at Cordelia accusingly. “I didn’t do shit. She messed me up, and only Whizzer believed me about it. I thought you were different. I thought you’d understand.” Cordelia’s face fell dramatically.

 

“I am different,” Cordelia whispered, and stepped closer to Charlotte. “Charlotte, I am so, so sorry. I didn’t realize -” Charlotte waved her off, and was already scooping up her books, using the sleeve of her sweater to wipe at her eyes.

 

“You’re just like the rest of them,” Charlotte shook her head. “So deep in your hatred you can’t even imagine that the minority might ever be right. God damnit!” She rushed out of the classroom, and, tears streaming from her eyes, and managed to hitch a ride from Whizzer as he drove home for the weekend, ignoring Cordelia’s weak protests behind her.

 

**PHASE FIVE: CULTIVATION** ****  
  


Charlotte sat on the edge of the bed of Cordelia’s truck, at least six feet away from the other girl. Neither spoke. They didn’t dare to. While the crashing Maine waves in front of them were beautiful, and calming, Charlotte’s heart was still pounding out of her chest. How could she? 

 

“I’m sorry,” Cordelia told her, for the fifth time that day. “I just...I don’t know, I just thought it was true.” Charlotte tilted her head towards her, but refused to let Cordelia see her eyes. Crying in front of her was the worst thing she could do at that moment. 

 

Cordelia had scooped her up in the school’s back parking lot a few days after their fight, almost completely destroyed from their argument. Hesitantly, Charlotte had agreed to get in, and drive to one of the nearby lakes with her, so that they could talk. Now, though, she was kind of regretting it. It was difficult to be alone with Cordelia. 

 

“You thought it was true?” She whispered, voice hoarse from sobbing her eyes out for days on end. “You put your stupid cheerleader buddies over me. We’re close Cordelia.” She slid her hand out, and slowly, watched Cordelia eye it. “In a...different way from the rest of them.”

 

“I wanted to believe it,” Cordelia admitted, and after a moment, Charlotte moved her hand so that she could lift herself up onto the seat of the bed beside her. Cordelia did so with her usual flare of grace and ease, like it barely took any effort to bring her entire weight up onto that truck. “I wanted to so badly.” Charlotte eyed her in absolute shock, and she could visibly see Cordelia’s heart crack in two.

 

“Why?” Charlotte stammered out, reaching up with one hand to fiddle with the other. She tended to do that when was nervous. “Why did you? I thought we were friends.” Cordelia shook her head, and looked out towards the sea, laughing bitterly.

 

“Because I thought you were too good to be true,” Cordelia ran a hand through her curls, and breathed out through her perfect nose. Charlotte pressed both hands to her heart. “You, with your weird hair, and strange way of talking. When I first met you I thought you were from another planet. And everyone...everyone looks at you like you’re a piece of trash, but I know you’re not. You’re not. You’re the most amazing, most interesting kid I’ve ever met.” Cordelia looked up at her adoringly. 

 

“And that’s saying a lot, ‘cause I’ve been a lot of places,” Cordelia continued, and lifted up one hand to turn Charlotte’s face towards hers, so that their eyes met. Brown on blue, Cordelia’s swimming ones, Charlotte’s hardened eyes in return. Both girls faltered for a moment, and then Cordelia pressed on, hand still resting just barely on Charlotte’s chin. “My world was black and white, before you came in. I saw colors then. I saw everything for the first time. You’re so different, Charlotte, and I think that’s what I like about you.” Cordelia stopped herself after saying that, and Charlotte’s heart melted at the sight of her pretty pink blush against the falling sunset. 

 

“Sabrina was the only other gay girl I’ve met,” Charlotte fiddled with her fingers as she spoke. “She forcefully kissed me in the girl’s locker room after we met, then blamed it on me.” She looked up at Cordelia, who had unshed tears in her eyes.

 

“You wouldn’t do that to me,” Charlotte continued, and took Cordelia’s hands in her own. Their skin contrasted deeply against the sunset, and it made Cordelia’s cheeks heat up even more as they watched each other concentratedly. “You are different than them, Cordelia. You’re completely different.” 

 

“I think I’m falling in love with you,” Charlotte confessed, the words tumbling out of her mouth. “I know I shouldn’t be, but I am. I don’t know how to stop.” Cordelia rushed forwards then, without any warning or response. For a moment, Charlotte was reminded of her only previous ‘fling’ (if you could call it that,) where she had been slammed up against that locker. It made her shiver, almost pull away, but then Cordelia’s soft lips were on hers, and she forgot everything completely. She forgot the truck, the ocean, the sunset, everything but Cordelia. Suddenly they were floating in space, Cordelia’s one hand sliding up to clutch her cheek, the other twisting into her shirt, lips pressing, fighting against her own like locked in some secret battle. With shaking hands, Charlotte let herself place her fingers into the hair she had been longing to touch, her dark hands contrasting with Cordelia’s bright blond curls, and let herself breathe for the first time in three years. 

 

**PHASE? SIX: CONCLUSION**

 

Charlotte woke up to rocks against her window. The pebbles bounced off the glass, and yelped at her for her to wake up. She blinked, and stretched, before remembering who was the only person who could be out there. If Whizzer had wanted to contact her, he would have flashed her over at the other house. She hopped out of bed, scrambling over to the window to open it. 

 

Cordelia was stood there, still in her cheerleading uniform from the pep rally they had during the last school day before. She was grinning wildly, hair blowing in the wind, and dropped the small pile of pebbles she had collected back onto the grass. Charlotte’s heartbeat quickened.

 

“You ready to go?” Cordelia called out, though attempted to keep her voice quieter than that, as to not alert Charlotte’s sleeping parents and brother. Charlotte nodded, and disappeared back into her room to grab her bags. Though her heart was on fire, she tried to control herself. They weren’t running away, of course, as neither had graduated - senior year was the next one - but simply going on vacation together. Maybe Charlotte had lied to her parents, telling them she was going with Whizzer instead of Cordelia, though it was vague enough so that they wouldn’t expect Charlotte to disappear in the night. Yet they’d know enough to understand where she was. The Maine shores were beautiful during the summer, and Charlotte had explored them enough to know what ones would be empty by the time she and Cordelia, in Cordelia’s dumpy old truck, got there. Oh well. Whizzer was going to be on his own little vacation with Marvin, whom Charlotte had decided she trusted after meeting him a few months back. 

 

She grabbed her duffel, slung it around her neck, and slipped out the window onto the roof. She shut the window, and walked to the edge, only about seven feet from the ground. Cordelia’s smiled widened at the sight of her, as though she hadn’t believed Charlotte would really go through with their carefully made up plan. 

 

“Come on, it’s just a little jump,” Cordelia rolled her eyes playfully, and Charlotte grinned despite her worry. She slipped off the roof, and landed on the ground with an oof. Cordelia rushed over to her, and almost went to kiss her. Charlotte shook her head, though, and glanced around the empty street of her suburban neighborhood pointedly. Cordelia nodded, and instead took her duffel from her, dumping it in the small backseat of her truck. She waved over her shoulder for Charlotte to follow her as she did so. 

 

Charlotte bounced over, and hopped into the passenger seat. Cordelia let out a small gasp, and her girlfriend twisted around while buckling to see the blond clutching the small field notebook Charlotte had been using to write notes on her.

 

“What is this?” Cordelia let out a giggle, and began to flip through the small pages. “Oh my god, Charlotte, were you...experimenting on me?” To Charlotte’s surprise, Cordelia didn’t look upset about the fact that Charlotte had begun her friendship for the purposes of an experiment. She was still smiling, and she tucked the book back into the pocket of the duffle bag.

 

“I forgot that was in there,” Charlotte mumbled, and Cordelia walked over to the other side of the truck. Charlotte shut her door, and Cordelia hopped into the front seat, her grin widening as their eyes met. Cordelia shut her door, and kissed her girlfriend quickly. Charlotte’s eyelids fluttered, her soul almost leaving her body, even if they had kissed hundreds of times since they had started ating that moment near the ocean. 

 

“I think it’s cute,” Cordelia told her, and started up her truck. Thankfully, it wasn’t that loud. Cordelia turned the key, and they began to ride. “I think you’re cute.” Charlotte smiled at her, folded her arms, and leaned back in her seat. Cordelia turned on the radio, and they started up again, both girls watching Charlotte’s house disappear into the background. Cordelia took her girlfriend’s hand over the center cup holders between their seats, and smiled so that it reached her eyes. Charlotte studied it carefully, and promised herself, as she drifted off to sleep, to jot it down in her notebook the morning after. She hadn’t yet written the conclusion, anyway. 

 

**END**


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